My Friend's Loss

This picture was taken at Mason's birthday party in late June.

This week my friend called to tell me that her husband passed away in late August. From my understanding he had a severe case of viral Hepatitis and it progressed extremely quickly. Her daughter is 3 and has similar eye problems to Mason. Around the time of Mason's party we were able to help them obtain a pair of glasses (frames) like Masons from the company in Italy.
We were able to go to dinner with my friend, her daughter and mother this week. Her daughter really likes our family, so we want to make sure we are available to hang out with them often. Then my friend and I went out for coffee and talked for quite a while. The idea of the grieving/mourning process is not quite as common in this culture, but I was able to sensitively share that I was here for her to talk/process/grieve to. Some of her friends have already told her to essentially "get over it" and start a new life. (It hasn't even been 2 months since his death!) In some ways she's still in the shock stage. It just happened so quickly and she couldn't believe it was possible for him to get so sick so fast. She is 29 and he was 37. They had been married just under 5 years. Would you please join me in lifting up Danielle (I've chosen to give her an English name for your sake) and her daughter? She is having a very hard time sleeping. Please also ask that I could be a good friend and be able to share with her about the Ultimate Comforter.

Blast from the past

One of my friends has been doing blast from the past posts on her blog and I thought I'd do the same!
Here is Reister last fall when we were at my parents house. He's wearing my brother's old Davy Crockett costume!

Reister's 4th Birthday!!!

I've had this post halfway done for a couple days now so I might should hurry up and finish this post seeing as it's overdue anyway!

This was the morning of his birthday party day - opening a present from his Aunt Robin and family!


This was during his party trying to get the kids to play a game where they shot down little figurines with a bow & arrows. FYI: this game doesn't work too well with kids under 5. And Reister was in a bad mood so he didn't want to play (he can do it, but he's practiced a lot)

More of that game

More...

Just to show you some of the kids at the party. The boy in yellow is Reister's good friend Jacob - he is 4 1/2.

This was right after some 'correction' time with Daddy in the back room. You still have to be nice and share on your birthday :)

During the second game - everyone was given a wheel to color and then we attempted to play pin the wheel on the race car. Again, didn't go too well, but I think most kids actually managed to get their wheel on the car. At least Reister colored his, but he wouldn't try to stick it on the car b/c he didn't want to be blind-folded.

More coloring - Jacob and Isaac (not brothers)

Li Zhuo Long from Reister's local pre-school class. He could only stay for a short bit. His birthday was the day before Reister's party so we were sure to have a present ready for him when he came! He is the sweetest little boy. He's the one who grabbed Reister's hand the first day back at school in May.

Micah G - Reister's 5 y.o. buddy

Luke B - almost 5 - he enjoyed playing with the Woodys

Mason is becoming quite the ham for the camera!

Hot Wheels racetrack birthday cake (not an easy feat, let me tell you. I have had a lot of trouble getting my cakes out of my 9X13 pan.)

The cupcakes on the sides say "Happy Birthday" in chinese characters. Quite convenient that I only had to use 4 to say that and still had enough for Reister's name!

Reister was blowing his candles out way before we finished singing Happy Birthday

Ready to eat it!

Happy Birthday Boy

All the boys couldn't wait!



Momma cutting the cake

Momma making some comment about how I didn't think the cake would actually turn out

Present opening time

So fun!

Loving the police car that Luke gave him

Family picture

Our househelper who came for the party to help out and wish Reister a Happy 4th!

Teacher's Day

Tomorrow is Teacher's Day in China...
I know Reister's teachers (at his local preschool) will probably get a lot of flowers and maybe little trinket gifts. I've heard from my teacher friends in the states that they get tired of all the gifts and end up re-gifting a lot of them b/c they can't use all the stuff they get given. So I thought about what we could give them to show our appreciation because they really are good teachers! (He has 4 in his class of 40+ kids) I decided on making banana and pumpkin bread so they could taste a little of American baking. The top one below is Pumpkin and the bottom is Banana. I called them "cakes" in Chinese because I thought that might make more sense to them seeing as they are quite sweet. But on the other hand, it's hard to find sandwich bread that's not a little bit sweet here, so....
Anyway, hopefully they will like them!

Disneyland on Reister's Birthday

Last week our family went to Hong Kong to see Mason's ophthalmologist and we stayed for several days longer to have some family vacation time. Mason got a good report, just a slight change in his prescription (weaker). We'll keep going every 6 months to monitor his progress. Here are pictures from our day at HK Disneyland. We went last year but Mason didn't enjoy it b/c he had dilated eyes.

"See my cool card!?"


BUZZ!

Reister didn't want to be in the pictures the first part of the day but Mason loved meeting the characters!

It's a Small World ride (no line!)

Family photo opp in front of "It's a small world"

Mason LOVES Mickey!

Couldn't get this repeat out of the post...

Tigger was fun too!

The sword from "The Sword and the Stone"

Carousel

Space men!

Most of the characters really doted on Mason - especially Daisy - she squatted down to get on his level as best she could and gave him a big hug - he loved it!

Goofy and Reister being "goofy"

Sweet brothers

Reister got to wear this pin and a lot of the Disney workers would wish him happy birthday and ask him how old he was. He didn't really appreciate the attention (has anyone ever had a moody 4 year old?!)
Reister got kind of confused about his birthday being September 1st when he knew he was going to celebrate at his party with friends. He really thought he might somehow forfeit the party celebration if he celebrated early. He wouldn't even let us sing happy birthday that day. :) so we're going to do it up right with a Hot Wheels party this Saturday at our home. He's really excited about it. I hope I can live up to his expectations with the party plans and cake! :)

Reister gave Mason a check up

Haircut Time

This week is was high time to get both the boys' hair cut. I took Mason on Monday and forgot to take pictures. Today I took them both back and got Reister's cut. There is an import store near to our house called "Sabrina's" Actually we prefer to go to another one even closer to us called "Summer's" - we are friends with the owner.

Anyway, there is a "babyshop" next door to Sabrina's that has a small hair salon in the back for cutting kids hair. Since they have the fun car-chairs and a mounted TV/DVD player to watch, it's much more enjoyable for my boys than a regular shop. It's about a $1.20 more to go here (altogether the haircut costs a little over $3 ha!) Here's the store front - you can see Reister & Mason in the stroller and a couple that stopped to talk to them. They had just gotten their baby's hair cut.

Here's Reister getting ready to "race" :) Note his long hair! It has been full of sweat lately because of the heat and humidity.

This lady has been the one to cut their hair the last 3 times. He was tuned into the show playing on the TV in front of him.


He even allowed her to wash it after ward - of course I did bribe him with the promise of a sucker if he would (and was good during the cut)

Mason is chesing it up for the camera. He didn't get his cut too short - who could cut off those beautiful curls!

There is a play area behind the chairs and Mason was content to play there while Reister was getting his hair cut.

I thought this view showed off his new 'do and he seems to look older here too. (He will turn 4 September 1st)


I'm thankful for this place that opened up (at least the hair cut part) while we were gone to the states.